1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to exercise equipment. More specifically, the present invention relates to exercise equipment with strength monitoring capabilities.
2. Description of the Related Art
Exercise is important to everyone, and there are many reasons that people exercise. For enjoyment, good health, to maintain an attractive physique, to be stronger, to excel at a particular sport, and many other numerous reasons. However, no matter what the reason is for exercising, there is usually a desire to track one's exercise performance. Tracking one's performance can be as simple as monitoring the time it takes to run a mile to quantify the time improvement. Or tracking one's ability to lift a larger mass when working with weights.
In our high technology society, the ability to use technology to monitor one's exercise performance is becoming an essential requirement for any physical activity. Most stationary exercise equipment now provides numerous information to the user such as calories burned, heart rate, distance achieved, and much more. Other physical activities have similar technological devices for providing performance monitoring. However, one physical activity area has been ignored, stretching and stretching-like physical activities such as yoga, pilates, and the like.
What is needed is a tool that can measure the flexibility of an individual in a particular area and predict an optimal stretch capability for that individual. The same tool could be used to increase the individual's flexibility.